A War of Interpretations: Abdelwahab Meddeb and the Future of Islam

 

A War of Interpretations: Abdelwahab Meddeb and the Future of Islam

Adis Duderija

Abdelwahab Meddeb in his book Islam and the Challenge of Civilization  arguesIslam can only recover through a “war of interpretations” culminating in a post‑Islamic, post‑religious horizon—forces a confrontation with some of the most sensitive questions of faith, history, and modernity. His argument is neither a casual provocation nor an external attack on Islam; rather, it is an internal, humanistic critique rooted in Islamic intellectual history itself. Meddeb contends that the crisis facing contemporary Islam is not primarily political or economic, but hermeneutical: a crisis of interpretation in which heavily  textualist and minimally hermeneutical  readings have come to dominate, suffocating the tradition’s pluralism, aesthetic richness, and ethical subtlety. Whether one agrees with his conclusions or not, Meddeb’s thesis challenges Muslims and non‑Muslims alike to rethink what religious renewal truly entails.

At the heart of Meddeb’s argument is the idea that Islam, like Christianity and Judaism before it, must pass through a historical process in which sacred texts are desacralized as absolute political and legal authorities without being stripped of cultural or ethical significance. Christianity underwent such a transformation through the Enlightenment, the Reformation, and the gradual separation of church and state. Judaism experienced a comparable shift through rabbinic reinterpretation, diaspora experience, and modern secularization. In both cases, religion survived—but as one symbolic system among others, no longer the totalizing framework governing law, science, and political power. Meddeb argues that Islam has yet to complete this transition, and that its resistance to it has fueled both authoritarianism and extremism.

Central to this resistance, Meddeb claims, is what he calls literalism ( but what this author would argue is better described as ahistorical,  heavy textualism coupled with minimalist hermeneutics) : the belief that the Qur’an and prophetic traditions provide timeless, unmediated instructions applicable to all historical contexts. This approach flattens the Qur’an’s poetic, metaphorical, and multivocal nature, transforming a text that once inspired philosophy, mysticism, and art into a rigid code of commands. For Meddeb, this is not merely a theological mistake but a cultural catastrophe. It erases the legacy of now maintly extinct  Islamic currents ( progressive Islam being an exception)  that embraced  reason, ambiguity, and interpretive plurality robustly. The “war of interpretations” he calls for is thus an attempt to reclaim Islam’s suppressed intellectual diversity from those who insist on a single, coercive reading.

Yet Meddeb goes further than many reformist thinkers. He  suggests that Islam, as a comprehensive religious system, must eventually give way to a post‑religious condition. For Meddeb, genuine recovery does not mean restoring Islam’s dominance but accepting its historicization—recognizing it as a product of time, language, and power relations. In this sense, “post‑Islamic” does not mean anti‑Islamic. It refers to a space in which Islamic culture, ethics, and aesthetics remain alive, but no longer claim divine sovereignty over every aspect of human life.

Critics of Meddeb might (errouneously) argue that his model imposes a Eurocentric trajectory onto Islam, assuming that secularization is both inevitable and desirable. Christianity’s path, they note, was shaped by specific historical conditions: the rise of nation‑states, scientific revolutions, and internal church corruption. Islam’s history and social role differ significantly, and many Muslims see no contradiction between faith and modernity. Moreover, for believers, the idea of moving beyond religion altogether risks hollowing out the very source of moral meaning and communal identity.

However, Meddeb’s defenders ,such as this author, would respond that his argument is less about inevitability than about relevance. In a globalized world shaped by pluralism, human rights discourse, and scientific rationality, a religion that insists on total authority risks becoming either violent or irrelevant. The rise of jihadist movements, in Meddeb’s view, is not a return to authentic Islam but a symptom of its failure to evolve interpretively. Extremism  thrives where symbolic, philosophical, and poetic readings have been marginalised. A “war of interpretations” is therefore not an attack on faith, but a defense against its most destructive caricatures.

What makes Meddeb’s thesis compelling is its refusal to romanticise either religion or secularism. He does not celebrate the West as a flawless model, nor does he dismiss the spiritual needs that religion fulfills. Instead, he calls for intellectual courage: the willingness to demystify sacred authority, to accept historical criticism, and to live with ambiguity. Such courage, he suggests, once existed within Islamic civilization itself. Recovering it requires acknowledging that no interpretation is final, and that clinging to absolutes often masks a fear of freedom.

Ultimately, Meddeb’s “post‑Islamic, post‑religious” horizon may be less a concrete destination than a critical posture—a way of thinking that resists dogma, whether religious or secular. One need not accept all of his conclusions to recognize the urgency of his challenge. If Islam is to recover its intellectual vitality and ethical depth, it must first reclaim the right to interpret itself against those who would freeze it in time. The war Meddeb calls for is not fought with weapons, but with ideas—and its outcome may determine whether Islam can coexist creatively with the modern world, or remain trapped in a battle with its own past.